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AN 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT CAMBRIDGE 



BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF THE 



Phi Beta Kappa, 




AN 



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT CAMBRIDGE 

BEFORE THE SOCIETY OF THE 

Phi Beta Kappa 

26 June, 1873. 

BY 

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 



CAMBRIDGE : 

PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 

i§73- 






Gift 
The U 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen : — 

I find a little difficulty in justifying to myself the rash- 
ness of accepting the invitation, with which I have been 
honored, to address you. It looks too much as if, in the 
face of so many admirable things done here by the ablest 
of our fraternity, chosen out of three successive generations 
of graduates, I were assuming that they had still left some 
part of their work for me to perfect. Moreover, I feel as if 
I were presenting myself in the position of a living anach- 
ronism of at least thirty years. The velocity with which the 
civilized world has moved in that time would seem to sup- 
ply matter demanding the application of fresher and more 
flexible minds. A veteran laying down his armor for repose 
may indeed fight his battles over again for his own amuse- 
ment, but he will scarcely pretend that he wields the vigor 
of the youth who is buckling for the fray. He may, indeed, 
delude himself and imagine that from the results of experi- 
ence he has gathered some general conclusions not wholly 
inappropriate to the consideration of those who are to come 
after him. It is in this sense, and this only, that I have 
mustered courage to lay before you some poor thoughts 
on this our anniversary. 

Possibly it should be added that not I alone, but even our 
Society too, bears marks of age, by reason whereof more 
than hints were uttered awhile ago that its mission had 



become too narrow to meet the demands of the expanding 
progeny of the University. Disclaiming any wish to assume 
intellectual refinement as the exclusive property of a class, 
it may yet be fairly argued in favor of select association in 
any pursuit that it is, after all, practically much the most 
effective stimulant to excellence. But, leaving the determi- 
nation of that point, it may not be wholly out of place to 
glance for a moment at what our mission really has been, 
and how far it has attained a useful end. 

It now lacks but little of a hundred years since its or- 
ganization. Its object was the establishment of a bond of 
sympathy between the youthful students in American col- 
leges in pursuit of the higher objects of education. It was 
a spontaneous impulse, premonitory of the widening nature 
of the demand about to be made upon their powers, and the 
resulting duty of increased preparation for the emergency. 
The manner of proceeding appears to have been simple 
enough. I have gained a tolerably clear view of the intent, 
from the possession of a diary kept by one of the early 
members, which has fallen into my hands. It was only 
four years after the Society was formed at this College that 
I find the following entry made in this book : — 

2 1 st June, 1786. " In the afternoon I was admitted, with Burge 
and Cranch, to the <I> B K Society. It is established to promote 
friendship and literature in several of the universities of America." 

It thus appears that a union was contemplated of a wider 
kind than had existed before among the youthful aspirants 
to advanced knowledge on this continent. The prosecution 
of a specific line of exercises seems to have been at that time 
contemplated. By this diary it would appear that certain 
under-graduates, selected from the Senior and Junior classes, 
were in the habit of assembling once a fortnight at the room 
of each member in his turn, to listen to a literary perform- 



ance assigned to particular persons for that day. To illus- 
trate this, I take from the same diary the following entries : — 

29th August, 1 7S6. "After prayer we had a meeting of the 
B K at Freeman and Little's chamber. Mr. Ware presided, 
in the absence of Mr. Paine. Freeman read a short dissertation 
upon the love of our neighbor ; Little and Packard, a forensic 
on the question whether the present scarcity of money in the 
Commonwealth be advantageous to it ; Harris and Andrews, 
the extemporaneous disputants." 

Whether in this discussion the disputants had had recourse 
to the essay of the founder of political economy in England, 
Adam Smith, published ten years before, does not appear. 
The fact is certain that at that moment no topic could be 
more interesting, for it was a time of great financial distress. 

One fortnight later, the following record appears : — 

1 2th September, 1786. "We had a meeting of the <& B K at 
Burge's chamber. Bridge and Abbott read a forensic on the 
question whether internal tranquillity be proof of prosperity in a 
republic ; Freeman and I, the extemporaneous disputants." 

29th November, 1786. " Last night the B K met at 
Burge's chamber. Little and Cranch read dissertations ; Freeman 
and Packard, a disputation, whether ' Good order is promoted 
more by the rewarding of virtue than by the punishment of vice/ 
Mr. Ware and Mr. Harris disputed extempore." 

From these extracts it is made to appear plainly enough 
that at this period the object of the association was to sup- 
plement the ordinary course of college training with a vol- 
untary series of exercises in dialectics. To that end these 
youths occupied themselves, each in his turn, in the art of 
treating questions of public interest in two separate ways : 
the first, that of written argument, the offspring of study 
and research; the second, that of extemporaneous dispu- 
tation, depending for its force upon the discipline acquired 



only by practice in drawing upon the mind at once. That 
there was growing a need of this kind of preparation for 
active life, seems clear enough ,• for the moment was criti- 
cal enough outside of the college walls. Whilst these 
youths were discussing the way in which good order was 
to be promoted, there was any amount of disorder prevail- 
ing almost within a stone's throw, and threatening the very 
foundations of society. In this same diary, two days prior 
to the discussion, is the following entry : — 

" This evening, just before prayers, about forty horsemen 
arrived here, under the command of Judge Prescott, of Groton, in 
order to protect the court to-morrow from the rioters. We hear 
of nothing but Shays and Shattuck. Two of the most despicable 
characters in the community now make themselves of great con- 
sequence." 

The day after the discussion the record runs thus : — 

" The weather very cold. No appearance of rioters as yet, 
though it is this evening reported that there are fifteen hundred 
within four miles of Cambridge." 

Notwithstanding this menacing appearance, we are told 
that on the same evening the young men proceeded to have 
a dance at Chandler's chamber, just as if nothing was the 
matter. 

But there never was in Massachusetts more just cause for 
alarm. The old colonial form of government established 
by an external authority had been swept away, and in its 
place had been substituted a new one, deriving its entire 
support from the consent of the people. And here was a 
very considerable portion of that people busily engaged 
in shaking the foundations upon which it rested by the ap- 
plication of physical force to prevent the administration of 
justice. Neither was the period much less critical for the 
College itself. It had from its origin closely entwined itself 



around the colonization of Massachusetts, and had made 
that process itself exceptional in history. As a general 
rule, the policy prompted by the discovery of America had 
led to the establishment, by the various powers of Europe, 
of dependencies all over the world, to be maintained only 
for their own pecuniary advantage. As a consequence, no 
observer can fail to perceive how little most of them have 
contributed during two centuries or more either to the moral, 
the social, or the literary improvement of mankind. It 
would seem as if the mere fact of a colonial condition were 
sure to entail upon every such community much the same 
species of subjection which ordinarily appertains to infancy 
in a family. Neither does this species of subordination 
quickly wear off. Let us for a moment look over the sur- 
face of the globe and notice how very small a proportion 
of the vast regions which have felt the stamp of European 
colonial enterprise has contributed any considerable share 
to the higher purposes of man. The ready way to account 
for this deficiency is by the fact that much the greatest part 
of these acquisitions has been treated solely as material for 
commercial speculation, the profits of which were to be 
gathered with little regard to any benefit other than the 
accumulation of wealth at home. Hence, no doubt, has 
come that habitual sense of vassalage, materially conflicting 
with a just sense of man's true destiny. 

The condition of Massachusetts as it stood at the close of 
the war of independence had been made an exception to 
the general rule, simply for the reason that it never was, nor 
could have been, colonized for any similar purpose. It 
could have contributed few material resources to the mother 
country, plainly because its natural advantages yielded no 
proportion whatever to those which might be found more 
tempting elsewhere. Neither would Boston have derived 
from ordinary adventurers any position much above that 



8 

of a third-rate fishing town. The root of its enduring 
vigor is found only in the moral resolution in which it 
started. Massachusetts would have been a cipher without 
the foundation of religious persecution upon which it was 
laid; neither could Boston have become the place it now'is, 
without the foundation of religious and political education 
upon which this college of Cambridge was placed simulta- 
neously with the settlement. 

But I may be asked how I maintain my proposition that 
the College made the State and not the State the College. To 
which my answer is simple : that without the religious 
motive it would have been no object to men of the character 
of the first settlers to establish a political status here, or 
even to come at all ; and, with that motive, political and 
moral instruction was an indispensable instrument to the 
successful prosecution of the religious enterprise. The 
result was that a college must be established for the pur- 
pose of insuring a succession of scholars who should be 
able to uphold the peculiar combination of policy in Church 
and State which they had it at heart to perpetuate. 

Thus it happened that the maintenance of education, 
though an incidental rather than a direct consequence of this 
policy, secured through the theological conflict of the hour, 
and its perpetual appeal to the authority of the Scriptures, 
the presence of a reading population for the moment, and 
simultaneously the necessary provision to continue it, a self- 
directing community, for the future. 

But if Massachusetts enjoys the peculiar honor in the 
history of colonization of making education coeval with its 
origin, it does not necessarily follow that the process would 
be carried on with vigor after the disappearance of the foun- 
ders. On the contrary, experience teaches the danger of a 
retrograde tendency in succeeding generations not sustained 
by equally strong convictions. It is comparatively an easy 



work to found a college. That of perpetuating it in the 
face of a decaying popular sympathy is the great labor. In 
order to counteract this, new motives must be supplied and 
a continuity of interest preserved. The colonial records fur- 
nish a sufficient explanation of how this came about. Where 
freedom of discussion is permitted, differences of opinion 
are inevitable. And upon the gravest questions affecting 
man's future condition, founded on opposing constructions 
of Holy Writ, expression of sentiment becomes a duty. 
Hence the interest taken in controversy. 

It is, then, the spirit of religious controversy maintained 
during the second generation, which contributed the means 
of keeping up the popular interest in this College. Con- 
troversy necessarily implies the possession of certain gifts, 
most readily made effective by culture in a university. It 
is invigorated by access to the higher sources of learning 
and the discipline imposed by the study of logic. More- 
over, the sense of opposition rouses an energy which stamps 
force on the language giving expression to thought. So 
likewise, the very fact of controversy, especially on the 
most momentous of questions, touching equally the interests 
of all human kind, engages the sympathies on the opposing 
sides, even of the most sluggish. No more striking evi- 
dence of this truth remains than the brilliant triumphs of 
Blaise Pascal, who by the pure force of his logic and his 
wit enlisted even the frivolous and volatile of his country- 
men in the study of the most abstruse polemics, carried 
on by him under the pseudonym of Louis de Montalte, to 
expose the fallacies of the strongest of the Roman Cath- 
olic orders. 

Hence it may, I think, be safely affirmed, from this 
review of the first century of the colonial period, that its 
political and literary life was sustained by the presence of 
Harvard College, from whose portals issued many sons, at 



IO 

least one half of them devoted to the work of promoting the 
religious culture of the people. At this day, if we look 
back upon the details of what appears to us wearisome and 
unprofitable contention, we are apt to wonder how it was 
possible that it should have held its interest so long. The 
fact that it did so, and thereby entailed a blessing, however 
indirect, is enough for us. It preserved the College through 
its most critical period. For it may be readily assumed 
that there is nothing great institutions of learning have 
more to dread in the loss of influence than a passive or 
sluggish reception by the community of the lessons it is 
their province to disseminate. 

The interest thus maintained in the preservation of an 
elevated standard of scholarship throughout the critical 
period of colonial infancy had another good effect, apart 
from the agitation of solemn questions of welfare here- 
after. It incidentally furnished the means of checking in 
another manner the retrograde tendency almost inseparable 
from new and isolated communities in the generations im- 
mediately succeeding that of the founders. It was the 
presence of the College which supplied the means of prac- 
tically executing the legal provisions for the primary forms 
of instruction generally. Experience long ago taught the 
danger of leaving these to degenerate in the hands of 
ignorant pretenders. It has often happened to a small 
community, starting with quiet self-complacency, on a con- 
viction that its system of teaching was the best in the world, 
to be, after an interval more or less long, rudely forced to 
open its eyes to the fact that pedantic and pretentious igno- 
rance had become nestled in the garb intended for scholar- 
ship and skill. Nothing makes rust so fast as routine. The 
maxim so trite among us that the price of liberty is eter- 
nal vigilance is not less true as applied to all sorts of 
proficiency in learning. 



Thus passed the ecclesiastical period of our educational 
history. It served its turn to protect the infancy and growth 
of colonial society, and on the whole it did it well. But 
the time Came when another and very different species of 
contention called for a new species of preparation. The 
newspaper press began to take the place of the pulpit, 
and secular antagonists appeared more prominently in the 
arena. But it soon appeared that, however different the 
persons, the arms used in the new warfare had been welded 
in the same forge. Quite a century has passed away since 
this species of literary progress took its place in our history, 
soon to be forgotten like its predecessor. It fell to my lot 
some years since to look up more or less of it ; and from a 
perusal I think I may safely say that, considering the rela- 
tive size of this community and its colonial dependence, 
nothing more strikingly illustrates the blessed influence of 
the spirit infused into the people by the education given 
at Cambridge than the masterly manner in which difficult 
problems of law and government were handled by those 
who had received their instruction only from that source. 

The political revolution which established the State as a 
component part of an independent nation effected a change 
not less abrupt in the condition of the College. Its identity 
with the religious movement of the age began to fade, and, 
in lieu of it, appeared a more exclusive devotion to litera- 
ture and science. For the first time in history, intellectual 
culture was recognized and enjoined in terms as a constit- 
uent portion of the organic system of government matured 
for the people of a new political State, and it was expressly 
made the duty of all public officers to cherish all institutions 
of learning generally, and "especially the University 
at Cambridge." 

How far that injunction has been practically carried out 
during the ninety years that have since elapsed it is no part 



12 



of my present purpose to discuss. If a smaller proportion 
of material assistance has been supplied than might have 
been reasonably expected, any deficiency has been fully 
made up from the spontaneous munificence of individual 
citizens. I think I said, a little while ago, that the city 
of Boston owed its present position, in a measure, to the 
benefits received from the proximity of this College. If 
so, I may confidently say to her honor that never was the 
obligation of gratitude more lavishly redeemed by her sons, 
and that too by many who never received any advantage 
from the instruction, but who were prompted by an instinc- 
tive and a just conviction that the charges so solemnly laid 
upon them in the fundamental act of the social system were 
wise and good, and they were prepared to abide by them, 
whoever else might fail. 

Coeval with the adoption of the State Constitution was 
the impulse to organize new methods for the promotion of 
science. Hence sprang up associations incorporated to that 
end, and others which have been maintained with success 
by purely voluntary labors, down to this day. Among the 
number is to be reckoned the literary society, the members 
of which I have now the honor to address. It is not an 
uninteresting fact, illustrative of the great change then 
taking place in our whole social system, that it did not 
derive its origin from within our own borders. It came 
from a spot whence, of all others, we should least expect 
it, the College of William and Mary, in the colony of Vir- 
ginia. What it was that prompted the youthful students 
there to make nearly simultaneous overtures to those of all 
other colleges then known in America, for the establishment 
of affiliated societies for self-improvement in literature and 
philosophy, does not clearly appear. However that may 
be, it seemed the dawn of a new era, when institutions of 
learning on this continent first determined to overstep the 



i3 

narrow limits of colonial authority, and look broadly over 
the land. Not the least singular circumstance attending it 
was that the project was carried on with the most industry 
precisely at the most critical period of the war, and at 
moments when the fortune of the struggling colonies of the 
South seemed at its lowest ebb. Concurrently with the 
first meeting held here, Lord Cornwallis was making his 
way over all opposition in North Carolina toward the very 
point in Virginia from whence the instigation first came. 
Yet there seems to have been no relaxation of these pur- 
suits so much more congenial with times of peace. Very 
surely it would have been a vast advance, had the plan 
embraced any forms of co-operation ; but that object does 
not appear ever to have been contemplated. Even the 
original and useful exercises first adopted here, as already 
described, have been long since laid aside. Instead of 
improving the young and the ambitious at their start in 
life, the practice has since been to celebrate a single day 
as an anniversary, and, after the Roman example in war, 
to raise some old evocatus like myself to inculcate pre- 
cepts more eagerly caught from younger lips. 

The decline of religious and political controversy very 
naturally followed the establishment of all the constituent 
elements of a nation on a peaceful foundation. Hence it 
has happened that during the greater part of the present 
century the cause of education here has ceased to be con- 
nected with the casual agitations of the outer world, and has 
been more exclusively directed to improvement in literary 
and moral and scientific pursuits in the abstract. This 
has, on the whole, been a wise course, though attended by 
the disadvantage of diminishing the general interest of the 
country in what is done. Yet, on looking back on what the 
College has to show for itself, it is not unreasonable to claim 
for it the merit of having introduced to a constantly ex- 



H 

panding theatre of public action a very fair share of the 
men who, in all the highest occupations of life, have 
acquitted themselves with honor to it and to themselves, — 
learned divines, eminent statesmen, profound lawyers and 
legislators, eloquent orators, qualified writers in science 
and literature and history, whose works will be their 
monument. In brief, the College can fairly claim that it 
has fulfilled its mission to an extent to earn for it the respect 
and gratitude of the country. 

At the same time that I admit this merit for the past, it is 
no more than fair to allow that the period did not elapse 
without leaving traces of our painful transition from a 
colonial to an independent condition, as well in matters of 
literature and learning as in government. It is not to be 
denied that a degree of implicit deference for a while 
habitual in the more educated class, not solely to the forms 
of instruction, but to the dicta of the writers in the mother 
country, remained to depress our native energy and to 
check the development of original thought. Long after the 
establishment of our political status the symptoms of this 
species of vassalage continued to appear. Neither were 
we without the benefit of occasional reminders of it from 
the parent State. How many years is it since one of her 
supercilious magazine writers asked the question, "Who 
reads an American book?" Neither was it, at that time, 
easy to deny some justice to the taunt. The writer, doubt- 
less, overlooked the fact that the same question might have 
been asked in his own country, with no better answer any 
time for nearly five hundred years before the appearance of 
Chaucer. There as here, intellectual dependence has been 
more or less a consequence of the revival of learning in 
the Middle Ages. What would have been the condition of 
human civilization at this moment, if we had waited for 
original genius to develop it in Great Britain or anywhere 



else in the northern region of Europe ? The light which 
blazed on it sprang from a narrow belt on the globe's sur- 
face, stretching along the eastern semicircle of the Medi- 
terranean Sea. To that quarter, and to that alone, can we 
look for the sources of all the religion, all the law, all the 
philosophy, and all the literature which has distinguished 
the civilization of modern times everywhere. Unhappy 
will be the day when we shall throw off that dependence, 
or cease to encourage the most intimate access to those 
precious stores of intellectual and moral and religious cul- 
ture which have thus far contributed so much to elevate the 
condition of man. 

For the rest, the progress made of late years in literary 
authorship puts completely to flight all these assumptions of 
degeneracy. Yet I am not of those optimists who imagine 
that nothing remains to be done to secure excellence in our 
modes of education. On the contrary, I somewhat appre- 
hend that over the whole extent of the land, taken as one 
surface, sciolism is becoming the rule and the proportion 
of ignorance multiplies rather than diminishes. Rapidly as 
the number of scholars has of late advanced in the best 
endowed Universities, it seems to me to bear no adequate 
relation to the increasing demand of the times and the 
growth of the population. Am I extravagant if I estimate 
the proper proportion of scholars who should be fitting 
themselves for the great work, at this University alone, at 
not less than ten thousand? In order to meet the exigencies 
of the times, there should spring up an enthusiasm for learn- 
ing such as of yore burst forth in the great institutions of 
Europe. Quite six centuries ago, when Great Britain had 
nothing like its present aggregate of population, and even 
that now falls below ours, it is affirmed in the books that at 
Oxford there were not less at one time than thirty thousand 
scholars. At the University in Paris at about the same time 



i6 

there were twenty -five thousand. At Bologna, the students 
of law alone numbered ten thousand. Conceding any 
measure of exaggeration in these figures, the fact of the ex- 
istence of this enthusiasm is attested beyond reasonable dis- 
pute. And we can only explain it by assuming a degree of 
zeal in the youthful generation of that day, which is the con- 
dition precedent of all true national advancement anywhere. 
I believe the great want of the time among us in America 
is a little more of this enthusiasm. We are apt to measure 
education not so much by its excellence as by its price. 
Hence the multitude of minor institutions spread abroad 
over the country, which are doubtless good as far as they 
go, but they cannot go very far. At such places enthusiasm 
becomes difficult, if not impossible. If lighted at all, the 
fire must be spread by the teacher among numbers working 
together. In the days of my youth at this University I 
cannot disguise my impression that the method was formal, 
mechanical, and cold. No scholar dreamed of sympathy 
with him in his difficulties, or regarded his exercise other- 
wise than as a task, for the failure to perform which he lost 
credit, or at best won a step over his comrades by success. 
In either event the teacher looked like Minos or Rhadaman- 
thus. In my mind the true maxim is the old one of Horace, 
applicable as freely to instruction as to the drama : — 

" Si vis me flere, dolendum est 
Primum ipsi tibi." 

A mighty loadstone is human sympathy ! I say this not 
with any design to reflect on the absence of it in the mode 
of instruction pursued at this day, but rather with a convic- 
tion that a great change has been going on since my time, 
which only needs expansion to supersede all that may 
remain of the old habits. 

I now come to one subject which may possibly be some- 
what new to treat of in this presence, yet which I cannot 



i7 

but think most important in connection with the progress of 
American education. It seems to me there is a want which 
ought before long to be supplied everywhere and especially 
here. I refer to the arrangement of a class of preliminary 
studies especially adapted to the preparation of young men, 
to take an efficient part in the treatment of difficult questions 
connected with the management of public affairs. It is not 
denied that the roll of the University bears the names of 
many graduates who have served their country with honor 
to her and to themselves, under various circumstances of 
grave responsibility. But even these examples appear to 
me, generally, to prove that the training, which they ac- 
quired by slow degrees in after life, often incidentally in 
connection with a profession not always calculated to secure 
the best or the most complete results, might be much more 
effectively commenced here, and prosecuted independently 
afterwards. There are many ambitious young men all over 
the country, and the number grows every year, who need 
and who would grace just such an occupation. 

It has indeed been often urged as an objection to this 
course that, however the case might be elsewhere, there is 
no dependence to be placed in America upon public life as 
a career. Where the sole reliance must be upon popular 
favor, the means to which persons are compelled to resort 
in order to secure it are often so repulsive that no man of 
nice sensibility can long submit to use them without self- 
degradation. Besides which, even under the most favorable 
aspect of circumstances, there is a liability incurred of 
sacrificing more or less of honest convictions to the dicta- 
torial spirit of party, which cannot fail, sooner or later, 
to undermine the spirit of independence. It is objected to 
me that experience proves the greater portion of the people 
to prefer a superficial pretender, who has learned nothing 
but the art of ingratiating himself, to any man of superior 

3 



i8 

accomplishment and elevated character, who knows no dis- 
guises and scorns making bargains. Hence I have often 
heard it maintained that one of the results of our present 
system of Government is, in a measure, the exclusion from 
public life of the highest talent and character, and the 
substitution of a class of persons little fitted for great re- 
sponsibility, either by capacity, acquirement, or morals, and 
possessing only an acuteness, improved by long-continued 
practice, to scent out the popular inclination of the hour, and 
so to shape their conduct as to secure the best chance of 
benefit from it to themselves. Thus it is concluded by 
some that a steady tendency to degenerate is so perceptible 
in the administration of public affairs that it is not worth the 
while of any young man who aspires to a high standard of 
excellence to think of venturing in so desperate a pursuit. 

I have listened often to much of just this sort of reasoning, 
but, I frankly confess, with a very slight inclination to yield 
to its soundness. If the effect be, as it is alleged, the exist- 
ence of a considerable amount of reserved power, now lying 
dormant in the country, because excluded from all opportu- 
nity of a career by these alleged causes, all that I can say 
in reply is, that, if fault there be, it must lie with those who 
decline to develop their qualities more palpably to the public 
eye, rather than with the community at large for not prop- 
erly appreciating them. There is such a thing as being 
so fastidious about means as never to be able to reach a 
practical end. There may likewise be a form of constitu- 
tional sluggishness which covers an aversion to the labors 
and obligations incident to successful exertion under the 
guise of want of opportunity. My own conviction always 
has been and still is, that under no system of government 
now known is there more full and free opportunity given to 
all, in whatever condition of life, usefully to develop every 
natural or acquired power they may possess, as in none is 



19 

there a more ready inclination on the part of the public to 
appreciate both services and character. And, if this propo- 
sition be admitted, then I should say, still further, that in no 
place should the means for developing such powers be more 
abundantly supplied than in our Universities of the highest 
class. 

, In saying what I have, let me not be misunderstood. If 
the purpose of this laborious preparation be merely a desire 
to obtain this or that high official position in the State, then 
will the pursuit doubtless be attended with more or less severe 
disappointment. Success or failure in reaching definite 
objects in life, we all know, depends upon such an infinite 
variety of contingencies wholly beyond our control, that no 
man is wise in risking his hopes of usefulness upon any 
narrow chance of fortune. 

I should feel myself to be very much belittling the recom- 
mendation I venture to make to my young friends to culti- 
vate a taste for statesmanship of the widest scope, if I were 
to associate it in general with the hope of getting into 
power. Nor yet do I mean to go so far as to underrate that 
object, considered as a means of developing innate force to 
purposes of good. I quite concur in the wisdom of Lord 
Bacon, when he says that "such power is the true and 
lawful end of aspiring ;• for good thoughts, though God 
accept them, yet towards men are little better than good 
dreams, except they be put in act ; and that cannot be 
without power and place as the vantage and commanding 
ground." I should, however, venture to question the exclu- 
sive feature of the condition. I agree tnat power and place 
are "vantage and commanding ground," but I would go no 
farther. On the contrary, it has for some time past appeared 
to me to be one of the wants of the time and the country, 
that of a class of persons bred in our largest institutions of 
learning, fitted to be exponents of doctrine in the science of 



20 

Government and of natural and international law, though 
with a very secondary view to the casual acquisition of 
place. If not themselves possessing that commanding 
ground, they are at any rate in a condition to enlighten 
those who do, in cases when some of them, at least, appear 
to stand in great need of it. I say, then, that what is most 
wanted is honest, independent opinion, founded upon exten- 
sive study and superior knowledge, and not likely to be 
warped by incidental temptations of this or that brief eleva- 
tion to a public post, or to follow the ignis fatuus of per- 
sonal ambition until it plunges the wanderer irretrievably 
into a morass. Hence high place may indeed be desired 
as a means of usefulness ; but as a warning of the ruinous 
effect of it on the possessor when carried too far, no in- 
stance illustrates it better than that of Lord Bacon himself. 
It should be kept in mind that in considering this subject 
I put wholly out of view any association with the ordinary 
party politics of the country as wholly foreign from the 
proper neutrality of a great seat of education. In the prose- 
cution of the study of the science of Government in all its 
various ramifications, there is not the smallest occasion to 
mingle with it an interest in the casual struggles of the hour. 
The preparation for action which I should desire would 
have in view chiefly two fields of usefulness to the nation, 
in due proportion to its rapid expansion over space. One of 
these is in the direction of the Periodical Press. The other 
is in that of public speaking with effect. 

When I compare the state of the Newspaper Press as it is 
now with what it was at the commencement of the Federal 
government, it seems to me that of all the changes that have 
taken place in our social system this is the most striking. 
Then a semi-weekly, or possibly a daily journal, in the 
largest towns, was conducted for the most part by a laboring 
printer, who confined himself to the task of filling his sheet 



21 

with news casually picked up, and relied for the treatment 
of topics of momentary interest upon such voluntary contri- 
butions as could be secured from promising young men, 
amply paid by seeing their productions in print. Now and 
then a heavier pen would endeavor to enlighten the com- 
munity on a grave and important subject. But the circle of 
readers would be at best very limited, unless in a few cases 
where republication might be thought an object in the few 
large towns. It was in this way that Hamilton and Madison 
and Jay labored and succeeded, not without serious diffi- 
culty, in disseminating the views which effected the adop- 
tion of the Constitution. But although a few able writers 
might gain admission to several presses which could 
unitedly operate upon opinion in some cases, it by no 
means followed that access would be given even to the 
strongest pen which should venture to reason, however 
forcibly, against any earnest popular excitement. The loss 
of some subscribers might ensue, and that loss would be 
enough to cripple the paper. The party lines, too, were 
closely drawn, so that no person disposed to express an 
independent sentiment of a controversial nature could rely 
upon a hearing. The cry of " Stop my paper ! " was too 
frequent and too formidable not to inspire great caution in 
touching angry questions. The effect was a practical ex- 
clusion of independent thought, and the multiplication of 
presses which studied rather to follow in the wake of public 
opinion than to lead it. 

We have outgrown all this. And the new condition, 
though not unattended with evils of its own, must be ad- 
mitted to be far in advance of the old one. Many presses 
now spread their circulation so far and wide that the)'' no 
longer have reason to dread the consequences of maintain- 
ing a free, unbiassed course. Party organs, purely as such, 
rather lose than gain a foothold with considerable num- 



22 

bers. And in the treatment of questions of great interest 
there is rapidly growing up a demand upon the most com- 
petent sources, of whatever they may be pleased to furnish, 
without calling the sentiment in question. The mere name 
of a writer of established weight is sufficient to secure him 
free admittance somewhere or other to the public view. 
Nay, the thing has gone farther than this in Europe, and 
even in some places in America. Persons believed to be the 
best qualified to treat some particular subject, for the moment 
exciting an interest, are eagerly sought for, and liberal 
compensation offered for their work, if desired. The effect 
of this must naturally be to present additional inducements 
to the cultivation of the particular gifts which secure similar 
results. One consequence has actually been, in the chief 
countries of Europe, a mode of treating the higher questions 
of morals and politics, law and government, by the public 
press, very much in advance of the practice of ancient times. 
And just so must it be with us presently, if not now. The 
effect ought to be to raise up a class of persons fitted to 
meet the particular want. How much that want was felt 
during the critical portion of the late war may well be 
measured by the painful monuments of error which remain 
as a warning on the records of the legislative department of 
the government. The rudiments of an education of such a 
class should be taught at this University. They will stand 
in no need of place to benefit the public, and yet they will be 
fitted for it if called on any suitable emergency. In any event, 
they will be likely to guide public opinion without regard 
to personal considerations. Such men make the best of 
advisers. I may be permitted to cite an example that 
occurs to me as a fine illustration of my meaning. I would 
respectfully point to the learned treatment by the venerable 
person lately the President of the University at New Haven, 
our foremost rival in good works, of the chief disputed ques- 



23 

tions growing out of the last treaty with Great Britain. 
Free as he is from all possible ambition for place, he has 
yet been doing a service to us and the world in general, for 
which the nation should count him one of its benefactors. 

For the reasons thus stated, I have been led to believe 
that a wide field is open for an honorable career, in the 
treatment, with adequate knowledge, of great questions in 
history, laws, and government, through the opening fur- 
nished by the public press, independent of any prospect of 
advancement in public life. The foundation of learning in 
this career should be laid at the University, and the chief 
instruments to gain complete success must be the power to 
write with knowledge, with clearness, and with force. 

But this is not the only opening to distinction, without 
primary regard to place. In every form of popular gov- 
ernment, the greatest source of personal reputation, as well 
as of public usefulness, has always been, and in my opin- 
ion will always be, the gift of eloquence. I do not propose 
to define by this term the mere faculty, not uncommon 
among us, of expressing our thoughts with facility and 
grace. My conditions rise much higher, to the sources 
which must be provided beforehand. The subject has been 
so admirably treated by Cicero, that any detail here would 
be superfluous. But Cicero did not have to learn in his 
day a thousandth part of what must be known now to com- 
plete the substance of an accomplished speaker. The 
single department of history alone, not to speak of law and 
literature and science, furnishes a rich mine of illustration, 
which can be worked for years with great profit. Of this 
the ancients had comparatively little. How small a state 
was Athens ! And how few topics had even Demosthenes 
to handle in dealing with a single enemy, however powerful, 
abroad, and a handful of rivals at home ! Even the far 
wider grasp of Cicero could not spread beyond the confines 



2 4 

of the republic and its tributaries, however broad that space 
might then appear. How infinitely expanded is the field at 
this time, when all the great nations of the globe are within 
hearing of one another ! An orator in the British House 
of Commons or the French Assembly will at almost the 
same moment fix the attention of his rival contemporaries 
in St. Petersburg and Washington, in Pekin and Constan- 
tinople. It may be said that the claim advanced so ridicu- 
lously by Anacharsis Cloots in the great overturn in France, 
of being the orator of the human race, is becoming more 
and more susceptible of realization by some really gifted 
person who may appear as time goes on. But I should 
weary your patience, were I to attempt to tell how many 
elements seem to me essential to the production of such a 
man. With these in his possession, no power short of 
physical constraint could suppress his influence. The 
records of civilization transmit to us only here and there 
a name associated with great triumphs of this power, and 
still more rarely the evidence upon which the reputation 
rested. A single Greek and a single Roman have become 
identified with our conceptions of the greatest excellence in 
this art. But the same path has not been untrodden since, 
and with a greater or less share of that fame which never 
dies. I conscientiously believe that this gift, in its highest 
state of perfection, can be made the greatest moral instru- 
ment of good vouchsafed to man by the Creator. Why, 
then, shall it not be cultivated, with little reference to mere 
aspirations of ordinary ambition? Who is there who would 
not rather envy the powers of Demosthenes than those 
of Alexander of Macedon? Who would not prefer the 
triumphs of Cicero to those of Augustus? Both of them 
died by violence, it is true. But was not that violence the 
most indisputable testimony possible to be paid to their 
superiority ? 



25 

Hence I respectfully submit the question to my brethren, 
whether it be not alike a dictate of prudence and a precept of 
patriotism to urge the establishment here of the best possible 
system for bringing forward aspiring youth adequately to 
grapple with the momentous and ever-expanding problems 
presented by the social and political movements of the time? 
Admitting that the requisite training cannot be completed 
during the brief period assigned for study here, at least it 
can be commenced, and a distinct practical road marked 
out to follow afterwards. I find nothing of the kind exist- 
ing here at present. The idea seems to prevail that an 
orator, like a poet, is born, not made, whilst the fact is clear 
that a real orator is the most artificial product of human 
education. Not more so is the splendid pile of St. Peter's 
at Rome. Yet if it be pleaded that in this relatively old 
and well-endowed institution the means are not at command 
to provide young aspirants at once with all they need to 
develop powers to fulfil with credit the very highest duties 
of life, I know not where, in the broad domain of the 
republic, they can hope for such facilities. We must be 
content with mediocrity for ever. We cannot even hope 
to provide for the secondary duty of counteracting the 
pestilent effects of the specious sophistry of the half- 
fledged demagogues of the hour, by perfecting more ex- 
alted models, both able and willing to contribute their full 
share to prove what it is truly to constitute a State. Late 
events seem to have shown, in a manner not to be mis- 
understood, that very many persons at present occupying 
high public trusts have erred most painfully, not so much 
from evil intent as from the absence of that which high 
education supplies, a nice sense of moral discrimination in 
public conduct. But there is even a wider scope for the 
exercise of a wholesome influence over opinion in the com- 

4 



26 

munity at large, which would soon make similar offences 
impossible. 

Let us not despair of a remedy. The times are critical, 
not here alone, but all over the world. Prospering in 
purely material interests, as I fully believe the people at 
large have never done before, the elements to bring on the 
gravest moral changes are simultaneously at work every- 
where. The problems now lavishly presented for agitation 
touch the very foundations of religious faith, of moral phil- 
osophy, of civil government, and even of human society. 
New forms of power are developing themselves, seriously 
menacing the solidity of all established institutions. Even 
that great conviction ever cherished as the apple of our 
eye, and which really is the rock upon which our political 
edifice rests, the durability of representative government, 
bids fair to be sooner or later drawn into question on solid 
grounds. The collision between the forces of associated 
capital and those of associated labor is likely to make itself 
felt throughout all the wide extent of human civilization. 
Much as we unquestionably advance in education, in refine- 
ment, and in the spread of the blessed spirit of benevolence, 
some fearful catastrophe now and then, on a sudden, opens 
our minds to horrors of a bestial ferocity still clinging to 
the animal nature, which would have disgraced the rudest 
age of the creation. Hence it seems difficult to deny that 
we make almost even progress in our philanthrop}^ and in 
the magnitude of our crimes. 

If it be conceded that this is so, and that the elements of 
good and evil are yet gathering with almost equal energy 
to try their strength in a conflict, so much the more impera- 
tive becomes the duty of those who aspire to the glory of 
promoting noble objects to waste no opportunities of fortify- 
ing their powers for the fray, — so much the more impera- 



27 

tive is it upon the highest institutions in this land, the great 
arsenals of supply, to furnish every kind of armor with 
which the more certainly an ultimate triumph of the right 
and the true may be secured. 

Cast a momentary glance over the surface of this broad 
continent. You will see at once that it is the most mag- 
nificent theatre upon which human power has ever had 
an opportunity to exert itself. Remember that upon it 
forty millions of beings are already placed, and that the 
future will doubtless contribute its annual millions in an 
ever-increasing ratio. You will also note that, flocking in 
from abroad, come the Celt, the Teuton, the African, the 
Aztec, and the native of far Cathay ; all rushing in to form 
parts of one huge conglomerate mass of restless humanity, 
upon whose fiat depends the realization of the highest 
hopes ever yet formed of approaching the image of a 
Utopian commonwealth. Surely never in any preceding 
record of human history has there been a fairer opening 
for the full development of the noblest aspirations for 
good, which the Divine Being has been pleased to implant 
in the bosoms of His creatures. Here is ample space and 
verge enough for the most far-seeing statesman, the most 
persuasive orator, the most profound philosopher, the most 
exalted philanthropist. Here is a field the like of which 
Aristotle or Plato never trod. Here are problems on which 
Cicero never could have speculated, or Bacon exercised 
his wonderful sagacity. Answer me, if you can, I pray 
you, shall it indeed be that this marvellous scene will be 
occupied by actors worthy of their place, who will strain 
their utmost powers to rise to every great emergency, and 
do for their fellow-men all that mortal power has been able 
to effect, since the forfeiture of Paradise? 

Let us hope that the enthusiasm for a higher education 



28 

may and will stimulate the young to weave for themselves 
a garland of laurels, wherefrom they may spread over their 
brows an everlasting crown ; and out of them the historian 
shall mark the good, the wise, the true, for lessons to the 
multitude unborn. 

Blessed, indeed, will be the Alma Mater who shall be 
able to cry out, "These are my sons." Sad will be her 
reproach if she should find them emanate from any inferior 
source ! 



. 1Mb*' 

"19 596 150 5 



